Yvon Phantomhive
by Rubyclaw
Summary: When Ciel Phantomhive and his butler die in a carriage accident, a mysterious teenager by the name of Yvon appears with documentation proving himself to be Ciel's long-lost brother and claims the estate and the title of Earl Phantomhive as his inheritance. However, Yvon Phantomhive has a secret dirtier than the mansion has yet known...
1. The Earl's Secret

**Author's note: I've never read the manga, so let's not go there. Please, _please_ post a review! I need to know if it's worth continuing as well as of any improvements I need to make. But you will. Because only losers don't write reviews.**

"So within three months, your investment in our company will have tripled!" the guest across the table insisted. "Sounds good, doesn't it?" Yvon, the head of the table, half-smiled ironically. He was around seventeen, with medium-length, golden blonde hair and deep blue eyes.

"Fascinating," the lord replies snidely, "how you feel it is appropriate to come to me with investment opportunities only a few months after my brother has died."

"Ah... yes, well... you seemed to have moved on. You were married only two months after the event." Yvon looked to wife, a young lady named Louise, who sat quietly at the young lord's right side. She was young, only sixteen, and breathtakingly beautiful; her soft, shining emerald eyes looked out from a face most marvelously framed with copper-colored hair which swung freely past her shoulders. Just the sight of her made Yvon smile fondly.

"It is always best to see happiness in life's simple pleasures, even in the midst of tragedy," Yvon explained. "I believe that it is what my brother would have wanted."

"Nevertheless, about the proposal –"

"No."

"What?"

"I am too confident in my finances to waste them on a crack-pot proposal."

"What?!" The man seemed unable to contemplate rejection. "You're just..." he stuttered on, "you're just a coward!" Yvon ignored this, sipping his wine. "You're just a man with no balls!" There was a pop as Yvon's glass shattered in his newly clenched fist. His calm expression had twisted into extreme rage. His infuriated breathing could be heard from across the room.

"Oh dear," Louise spoke in her soft, high-pitched voice, "now you've done it."

"What? Done what?"

"Yvon takes his manhood very seriously. I'd be surprised if he let you leave this house without injury, if alive at all."

"That's it!" Yvon howled. "You've insulted my intelligence, my family, and now my pride. I challenge you to a duel!" There was a pause as the guest nodded, knowing he had no choice but to accept. "I'll show you how much of a man I am," Yvon muttered.

They had agreed to use swords, and moved to the dueling hall. They stood back to back, and made the starting call. One Pace. Yvon closed his eyes. Two paces. _I have to focus,_ he thought. Three paces. _The sword is an extension of myself._ Four paces. _I'll show this bastard who's boss_. Five. _Pay attention – listen to everything._ Yvon opened his eyes and smiled. This would be easy. Six. He could hear his opponent tremble – it was like he had never held a sword before. Seven. Yvon took a deep breath. Eight. _Here we go._ Nine. _I'm ready._ Ten. The two men whipped around to face each other, brandishing their weapons. Yvon was almost entirely offensive; his strokes and slashes almost too quick for his opponent to block. Yvon's confidence disturbed his opponent greatly. _This kid fights like the devil!_ the man thought. Yvon took a moment's pause to catch his breath, which his opponent took advantage of. Yvon jumped back to avoid a wide slash that would've sliced right across his chest; however, the maneuver was incomplete. The blow landed across Yvon's waist, and, while it cut no flesh, the blow tore completely through Yvon's pants and undergarments, which fell to the floor leaving Yvon completely naked from the waist down. Both combatants froze. The opponent stared openly at the exact opposite of what he had expected. Yvon looked down in shock.

"Y-you're... you're a _woman!"_ the man exclaimed, horrified.

"Well," Yvon replied quietly, "I was going to let you go with a stiff beating, but now I _have_ to kill you." Shaking off the remainder of his trousers, Yvon lunged forward. His opponent, totally off guard, didn't have time to parry before being impaled straight through his heart. "No one will know," Yvon whispered into his opponent's ear as the man fell, never to rise.

"Baldroy!" Yvon shouted. The blonde cook (who had been switched to the butler position, considering Tanaka's retirement and the fact that he couldn't cook worth a damn) rushed in and immediately shuddered at the sight of the dead body and his naked master. "Pants!" Yvon demanded. "Now!"

"Yes my lord!" Baldroy answered, running back out.

"Mey-Rin!" Yvon shouted. The maid rushed in moments later. "You're the maid, aren't you? Clean this up!"

"Yes my lord." Just then, Baldroy returned with a fresh pair of pants. Yvon re-dressed himself. As Mey-Rin began removing the body, Yvon strode back into the dining room where his wife was waiting.

"Oh no!" she squealed, seeing him. "Are you alright?" Confused, Yvon looked down at his shirt and realized that there was blood spattered all over it.

"Oh, this?" he answered. "This isn't mine." Her expression changed from concern to disappointed suspicion.

"What did you do?"

"I... I killed him."

"Yvon!"

"I had to! He _saw!"_ Louise sighed.

"Yvon... that's the second time since we've been married. Twice in three months!"

"I'm sorry, Louise. I don't know what happened the first time. He just started touching you and... everything went red."

"You beheaded him, Yvon."

"I realize that."

"Last time I ever try to help you with any of your cases."

"Good! A brutal murderer-rapist, the last thing I wanted was for you to get involved!"

"I just worry about you, Yvon."

"I know..." Yvon answered. The room fell silent. "I told you you shouldn't have married me," he muttered.

"Oh, not this again!" Louise whined.

"I told you. I'm just a liability. I'm nothing but trouble. You need to find a real man, with a legitimate job, and legitimate money. But did you listen? No."

"Yvon, I already told you! You're the only man I could ever love!"

"I should just leave you. It'd be for your own good. Except... well, this is my house. I'd have to kick you out, and that's not really the same, is it?"

"Yvon!" Louise cried, running to her husband and wrapping an arm around his waist. He gasped, and they looked at each other, blushing. Louise took her other hand and slowly ran it through her husbands hair, pulling him in for a kiss. It lasted a moment, and then broke up. Louise's hand dropped down to Yvon's chest, her eyes lowering to avoid his shocked gaze. "You know... I should look you over... you might be injured..."

"I... yeah," Yvon replied awkwardly. "You... that's dirty." Louise giggled and kissed him. The kiss released and they hugged tightly. Yvon spotted something moving in the shadow of a hallway. He pulled apart from his wife. "You head on upstairs," he told her, smiling calmly. "I'll be there in a moment."

"Don't be too long," Louise answered, skipping up the steps to the master bedroom. Yvon heard footsteps approaching from behind: two people, one shorter than the other given the difference in the frequency of their steps.

"Yvon Phantomhive," one voice rang out from behind him, clear and cold.

"Hello, brother," Yvon greeted, turning with a smirk on his face. "I didn't figure on you showing up here again."

"Oh, blast, I was hoping I could scare you a bit," Ciel answered with the same smirk as his brother. The demon Sebastian stood behind his master in the shadows, expressionless.

"Please. I knew what you were the moment I first saw you. The cold, emotionless eyes; the pitch black fingernails. I am familiar enough with your kind, demon."

"You're very observant," Ceil answered, impressed. "Most humans are too stupid to realize what we are."

"Most humans are too stupid to realize what they are: ants crawling on a rock in space; here one day and then gone, never to be remembered. But, inevitable oblivion aside, what are you doing here?"

"Excuse me, I believe that this is my house."

"Not really; as I recall, you left everything to me when you left to... go do whatever it is you demons do. Hunt souls, I guess."

"You see, that is why I came here: I require a bit of payment for that favor."

"No, you don't. We never actually made a contract. I simply asked nicely for the fortune, and the title, and the estate, and you just handed it over without a second thought. It's surprising I could be related to someone so _stupid." _Ciel glared and clenched his fists, but said nothing for a moment, trying to calm down.

"It's still not too late, _brother,"_ Ciel offered. "We can still have a contract. Anything you desire!"

"No, thank you. I already have everything a man could ever want: a noble title, a fortune, a loving wife. There's nothing more I desire."

"Not even to be a real man?" Ciel asked. Yvon paused. "I know your secret, _sister."_ Yvon, however, quickly regained his composure.

"Not necessary," He replied. "Louise loves me for the way I am. She'll never admit it, but I don't think she'd be attracted to me if I were, as you say, _a real man_."

"But you'll need an heir! Unless you want to abandon our family."

"You did. Besides, I've already planned for that: I'll hide Louise from the public for nine months, and adopt a child. When she reappears with a baby in her arms, everyone will assume she was pregnant with my child. If all else fails, and I have her permission, I could even have Baldroy impregnate her; he looks kind of like me. I'd rather not though; the thought of another man with her makes me sick." Ciel was at a loss for words. "I'm sorry not to offer you hospitality, but it's late, and I want to go shack with my wife." Yvon headed for the stairs. "Oh, and a word of advice: Try a little more practice on weaker souls before you go after the intelligent ones like mine." He swaggered up the stairs without so much as a backward glance.

"You know, Sebastian," Ciel remarked, amazed, "since becoming a demon, I've been able to smell fear."

"I don't smell anything," the butler replied.

"Precisely! Yvon _has no fear!_ The man walks around as if he's God! It sickens me to the core, and yet... it enthralls me. I can't look away."

"He is... interesting."

"Yes. I almost wish I would've met him when I was human. We might have gotten along quite well."

* * *

"What took you so long?" Louise asked, curious, as Yvon entered the room. She was lying on the bed, already down to her chemise and drawers.

"My... brother... decided to drop by," Yvon answered, beginning to undress himself.

"Ciel?! What did he want?!"

"He seemed to believe I owed him something for the estate. I handled it. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find him hanging around here for a while. He seemed quite interested in me."

"Well I'm not surprised," Louise enticed, getting on her hands and knees and crawling across the bed toward her husband. "You _are_ such a handsome man." She reached up and put a hand on his shoulder, kissing him. He pushed back against her, so that by the end of the kiss he was laying down on top of her.

"Don't worry about him," Yvon reassured. "Tonight is for us alone." His head bent forward and kissed her again.


	2. Maman, Don't Leave Me

The next afternoon, while Yvon was having tea in his study, Ciel appeared again, much to Yvon's annoyance.

"What do you want?" the older brother asked.

"I don't understand how you know to recognize a demon on sight. Or even where you came from. I'm having difficulty believing that my long-lost brother happened to fall out of the sky right as I was abandoning my estate."

"I do my research. And... you and your butler aren't the first demons I've met. I am your real brother. You see, before either of us were born there was a maid who worked here for your parents. She was young, but an accident left her barren; cruel of fate, really, as all she ever wanted was a child of her own. She was the midwife at my birth, and she fell in love with me on sight. She proclaimed me to be born dead, and stole me away to her home country of France, where we lived until she recently died of... illness. Officially. She told me the truth before she died; I had always thought... she was my mother..."

"A fantastical story," Ciel answered. "I don't believe a word of it."

"But you see, with a little help from the supernatural, even the fanatical is reasonable. Here's the truth: My moth... the woman who raised me, anyways, was desperate to have a child. So desperate she'd sell her soul – which is exactly what she did. She entered into a contract with a demon: He would help her steal a child of her choice, and allow her to raise the child into adulthood. She chose me. I never knew until... until she got sick, and he came for her.

"She had been bedridden for a week, and the doctors couldn't do anything for her. I was only ten. I remember standing by her side, in my light-pink dress (I had been a girl back then, you see) hearing her weeze as she struggled to breathe. She was beautiful, even then; even as the sickness aged her beyond her youthful years, and her skin paled with the anticipation of death. I held her hand, smiling through the tears. 'You'll be ok,' I told her, sounding more confident than I felt. 'I know it. You'll be better real soon!' She smiled at me, her eyes half closed. Just then, a man came into the room; I don't remember the door opening, I just looked up and he was standing there. He was tall and expressionless; his golden eyes stared out coldly from behind his spectacles under his straight black hair.

"'It's time, Alexis,' he told the woman in the bed simply.

"'It can't be,' Alexis insisted. 'She's not old enough yet!'

"'It looks to me as though Yvette has grown into a fine young woman,' the man replied, speaking of me. 'Besides, you will not live through the night. Nothing I can do will change that. I've already intercepted one reaper who was on his way here to double-check why your soul wasn't in the ledgers.'

"'_Maman,_ what's happening?' I asked her. The conversation confused me, and she was the only family I'd ever known. I feared what would become of me if she died like the man said.

"'Hush child,' she comforted me. 'It'll be alright. Don't be scared. I'm gonna go away now; but it's alright.'

"'But what'll I do?' I whined, tears streaking my face. She looked at me seriously, as if she would cry.

"'Yvette, I'm sorry...' she spoke to me softly. 'I lied to you. I told you I was your mother because... I wanted to believe it was true. I was jealous, because I couldn't have children, so I stole you away. Go... go to London. Find... your real parents. They'll take good care of you, I'm sure of it.' The man handed me a brown briefcase.

"'These are your documents,' he told me. 'They prove your birth.' I looked up at him, suddenly filled with anger.

"'No!' I screamed. 'I'm not letting you take her!'

"'Shh, Yvette; it's alright," Alexis assured me, shakily unbuttoning the loose blouse that covered her chest. 'I agreed to this long ago.' She stopped halfway down, before she became horribly indecent, and I saw a dark yellow pentagram marked across her breast bone. The man took off a glove – the same mark was tattooed on the back of his hand. His fingernails were black. He placed his hand over her chest so that the marks lined up.

"'You're running out of time,' he said. 'Say goodbye.' She looked up at me, and smiled through her tears.

"'Goodbye, _mon petit ange.'_ I saw the man's mark glow faintly in a burnt orange, and the light in my Alexis's eyes went out forever. The man smiled with greedy satisfaction; a smile that would make any child cry. He lifted his hand, replaced the glove, and turned to leave the room. I was frozen in horror.

"'What...' I squeaked at last, 'what are you?!'

"He looked at me with that same horrible smile: 'I, am a demon.' As he spoke, a huge, death-black spider crawled out from between his lips and perched on his cheek. I gasped, and he left the room without another word. I did the only thing left to do: I began my long journey to England.

"I never knew his name, but I swore to myself if I ever met him again, I'd make him pay for taking _Maman_ away from me."

"Golden eyes, and spectacles..." Ciel remarked, "that sounds like Claude Faustus. You don't have to worry about him anymore. Sebastian killed him."

"So you can die," Yvon replied with a smirk. "I'll keep that in mind."

"So when did you start calling yourself Yvon and dressing like a man?" Yvon inhaled sharply and clenched his fist, fighting down a memory he would give anything to forget.

"It's... it's easier to travel as a man. A lone girl is... an easy target. It wasn't very long before I figured out I liked being a man better." Yvon took a deep breath and looked at his brother crossly. "Don't you have anything better to do than to stand here asking personal questions?!" Ciel shrugged and left the room. Yvon sighed, emotionally worn, and halfheartedly sipped at his tea.


	3. London: The Great Cesspool

Weeks later, Yvon was sitting in his study with Louise on his lap, running his hands through her hair and kissing her gently. Her arm was creeping down his waist, when suddenly a knock came at the door. Yvon interrupted his wife and swore.

"What do you want?" the young lord snapped. Balroy opened the door and came in, carrying a silver tray.

"A letter from Her Majesty," Bard explained, handing the letter to his master.

"Goddamn it, I was going to take today off..." Yvon cursed, taking the letter, opening it, and scanning it quickly. "Sorry, baby, they need me in London."

"Aw," she whined cutely. "Can I come?"

"No! Look, I've–" He cut off, looking at her determined green eyes. "I'm not going to be able to stop you, am I?"

"Nope."

"Alright, fine. Baldroy, get a carriage ready!"

* * *

"So, who are we after?" Louise asked as the carriage began to pull into the city.

"We?" her husband answered skeptically. "There is no 'we.' You have to stay with Baldroy."

"Oh, but –"

"No buts! You said you wouldn't be helping me with any cases anymore! Besides, last time you 'helped' I ended up beheading someone and we both agree that wasn't appropriate!"

"Fine..."

"Anyway, it's a serial killer I'm after. Hardly any connection between the victims, but they were all killed in the exact same way. Scotland Yard is chasing its own tail, as usual, so I got called in to stop it." The carriage came to a stop, and Yvon saw Sir Arthur and a few police officers trying to keep the area clear. He stepped out of the carriage and took a deep breath. "Here we go," he muttered to himself. He looked up at his butler, who was driving the carriage. "Oh, and Baldroy, unless you want to be a eunuch, I suggest you keep my wife in your sight." He saluted sharply, frightened, and snapped the reins. The carriage drove away. Yvon faced back to the police commissioner, who had spotted him.

"The Earl Phantomhive," Sir Arthur greeted disdainfully.

"Sir Arthur," Yvon replied with equal distaste. "Let's not waste time. Show me the crime scene."

"That's not necessary. We have everything under control."

"Oh, _of course!_" Yvon shouted sarcastically, with a huge, agitated grin on his face. "Of course it is! That's exactly what this says." He held up the queen's letter and pretended to read, "'Scotland yard is perfectly capable of taking care of this themselves for once; there's no need to get involved.' That's why I dragged myself all the way out to this _glorious HELLHOLE_ out of season: because my presence is _totally unnecessary_ and I just like to get under your skin! But let's not kid ourselves here: I would _love_ to be at home right now in my study with my wife on my lap reading a book to her. But I'm not, am I? So why don't you just quit trying my patience and let me do my job so that _we can both get on with our lives?!"_

"Alright, alright, fine," Sir Arthur agreed. "Sometimes I don't know if you're better than your brother or worse," he muttered under his breath. Yvon ignored him and proceeded to the scene of the crime. The victim's body lay mangled in a large pool of blood. Yvon studied the victim and the scene carefully before making a conclusion:

"By the look of the corps, the murderer was a butcher. The stab wounds suggest that a boning knife was used, and the limbs are severed neatly at the joint – this was no amateur." Yvon leaned in close to the victim and took a deep sniff. He also sniffed some bloody footprints leading away from the scene. "I suspect the murderer also smelt horribly of garlic and blue cheese. Judging from the smell and the footprints, I'd say he went this way." Yvon rushed off following the trail, leaving a very bewildered Sir Arthur behind him.

* * *

While Yvon was following the trail, he heard a woman scream. He began to run. Suddenly, he saw a pair of people in the alleyway. A stocky man in a bloodied apron had a young woman backed up against the wall with a long knife.

"Hey!" Yvon shouted at him. The man, who could only have been the murderer, turned, saw Yvon racing toward him, and grabbed the victim hostage-style, with his blade across her throat. Yvon flung a small knife that struck the criminal's hand. He howled in pain and dropped both the knife and the girl. The woman staggered backwards and watched as Yvon pinned the man to the wall by his throat with an impossibly strong arm. He pulled the queen's letter out of his pocket with the other hand. "Now, let's see... was I supposed to kill you or just arrest you?" The man promptly began begging for his life. "Hm... it just says, 'he must be stopped.' So I suppose the question is... Are you feeling lucky?" The man fell silent, breathing heavily. Yvon drew his sword. "You must not be very lucky. Scotland Yard didn't follow me. They would've gone easy on you. I'll try to keep it clean for the lady's sake." With that, he plunged his sword into the man's chest, killing him. He let go of both his blade and the corpse, letting both fall to the ground as he turned his attention to the woman who was still watching him with eyes filled with adrenaline and fear. "Are you alright?" Yvon asked her. "Did he hurt you?" Hesitantly, she shook her head "no." Yvon heard the sound of people running and shouting behind him. "Oh, that'll be the yard then," Yvon told the woman. "I suppose I might've waited a minute or so for them. I'm just so bloody impatient." The young lord turned to the approaching officers and pulled his bleeding sword from the corpse.

* * *

After giving a long explanation to the Yard as to why the killing was necessary, Yvon caught up with his wife at a shop.

"Yvon!" she exclaimed when she saw him, running up and giving him a hug. "You took care of it then?"

"Yes I did."

"Did you kill anyone?"

"I... no," he denied. Louise gave him a suspecting look. "Yes..."

"Yvon!" Louise sighed.

"I had to! He was going to murder another young woman!"

"There's nothing to be done for you, is there?"

"I know a few things you could do," Yvon suggested mischievously, wrapping and arm low around his wife's hips and pulling her close to him with play roughness.

"Oh! Yvon!" she exclaimed, surprised. "That's dirty."

"C'mon. Let's go home." The couple walked out of the store, but Yvon stopped, realizing something. "Louise... where's Baldroy?"

"Oh, I got rid of him!"

"What?!"

"I know it's hard for you to accept, but I'm scarier than you, Yvon."

"Well... where'd he go? He's kind of our ride home."

"I'm sure he didn't go far; there's a few bars on this street we can look through. We'll find him quickly enough!" She smiled optimistically.

"I hope so. I'd like to leave this great cesspool as quickly as possible." The couple wandered down the street aimlessly, hoping the butler would turn up to meet them. Baldroy, who had been smoking a cigarette in a nearby alley, saw the couple pass, and realized they must have been looking for him. Hoping to get their attention, he rushed out from the alleyway and grabbed his master' wrist. Yvon shouted and violently wrenched his arm out of Bard's hand, and he began to hyperventilate.

"Don't..." he muttered, his voice a higher tone than usual. Louise could tell his control was slipping.

"Yvon, are you ok?" she asked him.

"Don't let him touch me," he repeated over and over between breaths, not acknowledging his wife. His unfocused blue eyes stared off into the distance in fear.

"Don't just stand there!" Louise snapped at Baldroy. "Get the carriage!" Bardroy nodded and rushed off. Louise turned lovingly to her husband. "Yvon, it's ok," she spoke gently. "It's just me. Louise. We're going to take you home now." Yvon didn't hear her. He was trapped in a memory.


	4. Don't Let Him Touch Me

After a year or so of wandering, young Yvette had managed to make it as far as Paris on foot. Tired and hungry, she walked the streets of the great city alone, with nothing in hand but the unopened briefcase and the money Alexis had saved for her, which was quickly dwindling. Unable to afford the ship to London, she ambled aimlessly about the city, hoping for an opportunity to surface. She stayed in Paris for two more years, until she was thirteen, and her life as Yvette ended.

Yvette was walking, disparaged, down a Parisian street one night, wondering what on earth she was going to do. Suddenly, a man's hand reached out of the shadows and gripped her wrist painfully tightly. She shouted, but his other hand wrapped around her face and the man dragged her into a dead-end alley. She struggled futilely as she saw eight or nine shadowy silhouettes appear in the dim orange light of lanterns at the end of the dark alley road. More men, some sitting, some standing, and a few smoking cigarettes.

"There you are, Pons," one of the smokers greeted Yvette's kidnapper. "Where the hell have you been?"

"He brought us a present," another man chuckled wickedly, noticing Yvette.

"I hope you were intending to share," a third piped in. By now, all the men were standing and had formed a large circle with Pons, who threw Yvette into the middle of it. The girl was terrified. She didn't know what they were going to do, but she knew it would be painful.

Two men grabbed her arms, and another two forced her legs apart, while the remaining four took turns raising her skirts and forcing themselves onto her. They didn't bother covering her mouth; they left her to scream in agony and horror, mocking her cries for mercy.

"No! No! Stop it! Please! No..." Suddenly, Yvette felt a new emotion overwhelm her terror: rage. Rage like a fiery storm pulsing through her veins. A rage that could only be satisfied by destruction. Rage that thirsted for death.

"Wh... what's wrong with her eyes?" one of the men holding her arms questioned nervously. Yvette barely heard him. She let out a vengeful scream, and everything went red.

* * *

She awoke as the dawn's rosy fingers began to streak through the sky, at first only aware that she was sitting in something wet. She swallowed dryly in an attempt to rid herself of the bitter, metallic taste that had settled in her tongue. She could feel something caked under her fingernails. She was panting and exhausted. She tried to stand, and something gushed under her foot. She looked around. She was surrounded by what seemed to be heaps of bloody rags. The smell reminded her of a butcher's shop. She had succeeded in standing, and tried to walk, but something caught her eye and she froze: A face petrified by terror peeked out of the heap of blood, a face she could never forget: the man who kidnapped her. His face stared out from what Yvette now recognized as his body, mangled and disfigured though it was. But that would mean... the piles... She gazed about again, and found it to be true – she was surrounded by the mutilated corpses of the men who had attacked her. The bodies were savagely torn apart, clawed, and bitten, as if by an animal. Yvette realized that her dress was covered in blood spatter. She slowly lifted her hands to get a better look at them. Her arms were soaked in dark blood. The realization of what she'd done dawned on her, and she screamed.

A prostitute was on her way home from work one morning when she heard the screaming cries of a young child. Curious, she followed the sound into an alleyway, and met with a horrifying sight: a crying young girl surrounded by mutilated corpses. Her softer side got the better of her, and she rushed to the child's side.

"Are you alright?" the woman asked. "What happened?"

"M-monster..." the child sobbed. "Monster!" She started crying even harder.

"No no no no shhhh..." the woman comforted. "Don't be afraid. That monster's not going to hurt you anymore." She looked around and the bodies, and recognized a few of them as clients. "But what's a girl like you doing with..." She stopped as the realization dawned on her. "Oh my God, you poor child! Here... let me take you home and get you cleaned up." The girl looked up at her with tear-filled, ghostly eyes, and eventually nodded, shakily trying to stand. Once the girl reached her feet, she panicked.

"Where's the case?!" she shouted. "I have to find the case!" The little girl ran out to the street on the other end of the alley without a second thought. The woman, surprised and a little worried, ran out after her. She found the girl rummaging through some boxes on the side of the road, near the alley they had just left. The girl smiled and pulled out a brown briefcase. "Thank goodness! I thought it was gone forever!"

"Why is it so important?"

"It's... well... it's all I have." The woman nodded, understanding.

"Alright then. That's taken care of. Let's get you cleaned up."

* * *

The young girl sat silently in the tub while the woman who found her was looking for clean clothes that would fit the child. Despite the finding of the case having cheered her up, she had settled back into a ghostly silence, her bright blue eyes once more cold and dead.

"So..." the woman began, attempting to bring the girl out of her stupor, "what's a young lady like you doing out here all on your own? Where are your parents?"

"London," the child answered simply.

"London?! Whatever for?"

"They live there. I was stolen as a baby. My _maman..._ wasn't really my _maman_ at all..."

The girl was on the verge of tears, so the woman made an offer: "Oh, don't worry about that! I'm sure you'll real parents'll love a sweet little girl like you! You know what, I'll take you to London myself. I'll have you on the first ship out, soon as I can get the money together. How's that sound?" The child paused to swallow her tears before she nodded, agreeing. Clothes having been found, there was another long silence as she dressed herself slowly and sat down on the floor.

"_Mademoiselle?"_ the child squeaked quietly. "I see so many boys my age running around on the streets, but there aren't any girls. Why?"

"I think you found out for yourself why," the woman replied. "People don't tend to mess with boys that way. Yeah, there are a few perverts out there, but for the most part it seems people leave the boys alone."

"Why can't I be a boy?"

"Well... well that's just not the way you were made."

"So? If I dress like one, and I act like one, no one will know the difference."

"That's not the way it works!"

"Why not?! Boys can travel on their own, and swear, and wear pants, and they never cry, and _they can beat up the bastards who mess with them!"_ The child had raised her voice to a furious shout, and that's when the prostitute first saw it: an angry young man's eyes glaring out of the little girl's body. The look was so startling, and so... familiar... the woman hardly knew what to say.

"Listen... child..."

"Don't call me child!" she shouted. Spotting the cooking knife on the table in the room, she ran over and scooped it up before the woman could stop her. She raised the blade to her head, and with one swift motion her golden hair was cut from shoulder length to just behind her ears. "My name... is Yvon!" The newly-named Yvon shouted difinitively, looking, for all the world, like an angry young boy in a pink, frilly dress. "And I'm going to London – with or without your help!"

"Um..." the woman said, nearly bursting into tears, "a young man like you shouldn't be running around in skirts like that. It's not proper." She began to rummage around in a trunk in the back of the room. "Put these on," she told him, offering him a slightly worn-out boy's outfit. "I had a son about your age. Died of cholera a few years back. I'd been keeping them to remember him by but... I think you'll wear them better. Go ahead and get dressed. I have a friend in London. He'll take care of you until you find your family."

"How do I find him?"

"In the east end there's a big burned out factory. Of course, you probably won't get that close without running into a few of his boys. Just tell them you're looking for Duke. When they take you to him tell him Roselle sent you."

"Thank you," Yvon told the woman.

"Good luck, Yvon."

"Yvon?" another woman's voice was whispering to him as he slowly regained control of himself. "Yvon, are you ok?" Yvon suddenly jumped and reached for his sword. He didn't know where he was, or who was with him. Everything was moving for some reason. A gentle hand kept him from drawing his weapon, and he found himself staring into a beautiful pair of emerald-green eyes.

"L-Louise?" He stuttered, finally starting to recognize her.

"That's right, it's just me. You started having a fit in the street, so we started taking you home. We're almost there now."

"Oh..." Yvon mumbled, remembering. "Oh... right... sorry."

"No, it's alright. Baldroy just scared you is all." Yvon sighed, leaning over and holding his forehead with one hand. "You weren't responding at all. I was really worried about you." Louise continued quietly.

"No, no I'm alright, I was just... remembering. I'm fine. Really."

"If you're sure..."

"Hey, don't worry about me," Yvon insisted. "I just need to relax a bit now. No big deal."

"I know something that'll help you relax," Louise offered, smiling seductively.

"Louise," Yvon chided jokingly, "That's dirty."


End file.
